Computer network and related methods for generating printer usage information

ABSTRACT

A computer network may include a plurality of computers connected together in a network and generating printer control data, and at least one printer connected to the network for printing the printer control data. The at least one designated computer may generate printer usage information from the printer control data.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the field of document processing, and,more particularly, to a computer network and related methods formonitoring printer resource usage.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Despite the advances in electronic document storage in recent years,paper based documents are still required for many reasons by businesses,including readability and record maintenance. As a result, the use ofprinters is extensive and growing. The costs associated with printerscan be significantly high, and it may therefore be extremely beneficialto many businesses to know what their printer resource usage is so thatthe costs associated therewith may be determined for accountingpurposes. Furthermore, this information may also assist in determininghow the printing requirements for a given business may best be met inthe most economically efficient manner by using various networkconfigurations or printers that are on the market.

To this end, a certain amount of print information may be obtained fromthe operating system on any particular individual personal computer, oron any network of computers. However, the information that may begleaned from operating system records or logs is often limited. Althoughthe operating system may provide information as to when a print job wasrequested and by whom, for example, it generally will not provideinformation about the attributes that were selected with the print job.Such attributes may include, for example, sorting, stapling,double-sided printing, paper size, amount of toner/ink expended, etc.

Various attempts have been made in the prior art to account for printerusage. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,216,113 to Aikens et al. disclosesan electronic network transaction recording system for accumulatingbilling data for printing machines interconnected to multiple workstations on the network. A network administrator includes a memory forstoring data representing usage of selected printers and a decoder forvalidating a print job request and a billing account number. This usagedata and billing information is provided by the user via a userinterface which is prompted when a user requests a print job. Requestsfor print jobs are verified based on the billing information and billedto an individual or group billing account number.

While the above approach does provide certain advantages, such asattributing printing charges to billing account numbers, it may bedisadvantageous for tracking printer resource usage in somecircumstances. For example, if one wishes to track the usage ofparticular printers for resource deployment purposes, it may becumbersome to require users to type usage data and billing informationinto a user interface for each print request. Moreover, the above systemmay not account for print usage on local printers, or printing that isdone remotely by users with laptop computers, for example.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a computer networkand related methods which generate printer usage information that may beanalyzed to determine a more efficient allocation of printer resourcesand, consequently, promote more responsible use and a betterunderstanding of printing costs.

This and other objects, features, and advantages in accordance with thepresent invention are provided by a computer network which may include aplurality of computers connected together in a network and generatingprinter control data, and at least one printer connected to the networkfor printing the printer control data. The at least one designatedcomputer may generate printer usage information therefrom. Furthermore,the at least one designated computer may copy the printer control dataand generate the printer usage information from the copied printercontrol data, which advantageously allows the printer control data tocontinue to the intended printer without significant delay.

More particularly, the at least one designated computer may be at leastone server. Alternately, at least one of the computers may be a server,and the at least one server may cause a tracking application to beinstalled on the at least one designated computer for causing the atleast one designated computer to copy the printer control data andgenerate printer usage information therefrom. Further, the at least oneserver may also cause a monitoring application to be installed on the atleast one designated computer to detect local printing (or this may bedone manually). Thus, the at least one server may cause the trackingapplication to be installed on the at least one designated computerbased upon the monitoring application detecting local printing. Thus,the tracking application can advantageously be installed only on thosecomputers which perform local printing, for example, if desired.

In addition, the at least one designated computer may collect theprinter usage information. The at least one server and/or the at leastone collection computer may also collect the printer usage informationfrom the designated computer. Moreover, the at least one designatedcomputer may delete the printer usage information after collectionthereof by the at least one collection computer (or the at least oneserver). Further, the at least one collection computer may cause atracking application to be installed on the at least one designatedcomputer for causing the at least one designated computer to copy theprinter control data and generate printer usage information therefrom.The at least one collection computer may also periodically generate asummary of the printer usage information.

The at least one designated computer may include at least one of apersonal computer (PC), a laptop, and a personal data assistant (PDA),for example. Further, the at least one designated computer may betemporarily connected to the network. That is, if the at least onedesignated computer is a laptop, it may still copy printer control dataand generate printer usage information based thereon while it is notconnected to the network. The same may also be true of a PC when it isnot logged onto the computer network but is performing local printing,for example. Thus, the at least one designated computer may alsogenerate the printer control data. Furthermore, the at least one userdesignated computer may delete the copied printer control data aftergenerating the printer usage information.

The printer usage information may include at least one of a date whenthe printer control data was sent, a time when the printer control datawas sent, an identifier of a computer generating the printer controldata, a user name of a user originating the printer control data, anidentifier for the at least one printer, a number of pages to beprinted, and a size of the printer control data. Moreover, the printerusage information may also include job attributes including at least oneof paper size, simplex printing, duplex printing, sorting, stapling,binding, color printing, document collation, tumble feeding, manualfeeding, automatic feeding, and trim.

A method aspect of the invention is for generating printer usageinformation for a computer network comprising a plurality of computers.The method may include generating printer control data from theplurality of computers to be printed by at least one printer connectedto the computer network. Furthermore, the printer control data mayoptionally be copied using at least one designated computer, and printerusage information may also be generated from the copied printer controldata using the at least one designated computer.

The present invention also relates to a computer-readable medium havingcomputer-executable instructions for performing steps for generatingprinter usage information for a computer network comprising a pluralityof computers. The steps may include intercepting printer control datagenerated by the plurality of computers using at least one designatedcomputer, where the printer control data is to be printed by at leastone printer connected to the computer network, and generating printerusage information from the printer control data.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a computer network according tothe present invention for generating printer usage information.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of an alternate embodiment of thecomputer network of FIG. 1 including a server.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating a method according to the presentinvention.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating installation of the trackingsoftware according to the present invention.

“FIGS. 5 and 6 are flow diagrams illustrating further operationalaspects of the system of FIG. 2.”

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention will now be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the accompanying drawings, in which preferred embodimentsof the invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied inmany different forms and should not be construed as limited to theembodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided sothat this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fullyconvey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. Likenumbers refer to like elements throughout, and prime notation is used toindicate similar elements in alternative embodiments.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a computer network 10 according to the presentinvention is first described. The computer network 10 illustrativelyincludes one or more computers such as user computers 11 connectedtogether. More particularly, the user computers may be personalcomputers (PCs) 11 a and/or laptop computers 11 b, for example, or anyother suitable device which is capable of generating print jobs for aprinter, such as personal data assistants (PDA), etc., for example, aswill be understood by those of skill in the art. Furthermore, thecomputer network 10 may be a local area network (LAN) or any other formof network, including a virtual private network or the Internet, forexample.

One or more printers 13 are also connected to the network 10. The usercomputers 11 a, 11 b typically have one or more applications installedthereon, such as a word-processing application, for example, whichgenerate print jobs. Each print job is transmitted to the printer 13 asprinter control data, as illustratively shown with solid arrows in FIG.1, which includes the requisite instructions and/or information requiredby the printer to print the user's document, image, etc. By way ofexample, the printer control data may take the form of a print spoolfile, a print data stream, etc., depending upon the particularapplication generating the print job and/or the operating system. Theapplication directs the printer control data to be sent via the computernetwork 10 to a particular printer 13 (which may be either a networkprinter or a local printer), via a parallel port, serial port, infraredlink, USB port, etc.

As used herein, “printer” broadly includes any suitable device that canprint a document, etc. from printer control data generated by acomputer, such as laser printers, ink-jet printers, thermal printers,multi-function devices such as copiers that include printingcapabilities, fax machines, etc., as will be understood by those skilledin the art. The computer network 10 may include wires, fiber-opticcables, and/or wireless links, for example, for connecting the variouscomponents, as well as other suitable devices which will also beappreciated by those skilled in the art.

According to the present invention, a printer control data trackerapplication may be installed and run on the user computers 11 a, 11 b todetect when an application generates printer control data. When thisoccurs, the printer control data sent from the user computer 11 a, 11 bto the printer 13 is intercepted, and optionally copied by, the printercontrol data tracker application. Copying the printer control data maybe advantageous in that the copy can be used to generate the printerusage information, as will be explained further below, while allowingthe printer control data to continue along to the printer 13, thoughthis is not required. The tracker application then executes the printercontrol data (or copy thereof) to extract printer usage information(illustratively shown as dashed arrows in FIG. 1) therefrom. Moreparticularly, the tracker application executes or renders the printercontrol data, much the same as a processor in the printer 13 wouldotherwise do to print the document, to obtain the printer usageinformation.

By way of example, the printer usage information may include: a pagecount; a date and time of printing; the user computer 11 a, 11 b fromwhich the print job was generated and the user who originated the printjob; a logical printer to which the printer control data was sent; aport via which the printer control data was sent; a printer driver used;whether the printer control data was printed locally (i.e., when theuser computer was connected or logged on to the network 10) or remotely;a name and size of the print job; and print job attributes. The printjob attributes may include, for example, paper size, simplex or duplexprinting, sorting, stapling, binding, color printing, collation, tumblefeeding, manual or automatic feeding, trim, etc.

The printer usage information may be written into a printer usageinformation file which may then be forwarded to a collection computer 15also connected to the computer network 10, for example. It should benoted that a separate collection computer 15 may not be needed, and thata server 16′ (FIG. 2) or one of the user computers 11 a, 11 b maycollect the printer usage data in certain embodiments.

Moreover, printer usage information files may also be stored temporarilyin the memory (either in RAM or on disk, for example) of the usercomputer 11 a, 11 b (or elsewhere) rather than being sent directly tothe collection computer 15. This may be advantageous when the collectioncomputer 15 is unavailable, for example. This may also be done when theuser computer 11 a, 11 b is temporarily disconnected from the computernetwork 10. According to the invention, when the user computer 11 a, 11b is reconnected to the computer network 10, the print usage informationfile that is stored in the user computer may then advantageously beforwarded to the collector 15 so that no data is lost.

One example of disconnection and subsequent reconnection of a usercomputer 11 a, 11 b to the computer network 10 is that of a laptop whichmay be temporarily connected to the computer network for datasynchronization purposes. Of course, this may also occur with a user PC11 a in the case of a network or server outage, or simply from notlogging on to the network and printing locally, as will be appreciatedby those of skill in the art.

Turning now to the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 2, all of the usercomputers 11 a′, 11 b′ are connected to the server 16′ (e.g., a printserver). If all of the printer control data from the user computers 11a′, 11 b′ is directed to the network printer(s) 13′ via the server 16′,the above noted printer control data tracker application mayadvantageously be installed only on the server yet still track all ofthe printer resource usage for the entire computer network 10′. Ofcourse, the printer control data tracker application may additionally beinstalled on the user computers 11 a′, 11 b′ as noted above, which willbe discussed further below.

As similarly described above, the server 16′ may generate the printerusage information file and forward it along to the collection computer15′. Here again, the server 16′ could also collect the printer usageinformation in some embodiments, or the server may temporarily store theprinter usage information file as described above with respect to FIG.1.

According to the present invention, printer resource usage informationmay be generated and collected for the computer network 10′ over apredetermined period of time without users knowing that the resourcesare being monitored. For example, a period of about 40 days or lessshould be sufficient to provide an accurate sample of printer resourceusage in most circumstances, though any period of time may be used. Theresults of an analysis of printer usage obtained according to thepresent invention may be particularly accurate in that actual usage ofthe printer resources for both local and network printers may betracked.

To this end, if it is desired to install and operate the trackingfunction of the present invention in a way which is substantially“invisible” or undetectable to users, the printer control data trackerapplication may be installed remotely on the user computers 11 a′, 11b′. For example, another computer on the computer network 10′ (such asfrom the server 16′ or collection computer 15′) may cause the softwareto be uploaded to a user computer 11 a′, 11 b′ and then cause aself-install routine take place.

In certain circumstances, some other party, such as a consultant, mayperform the software installation and analyze the results to report backto the owner of the computer network 10′. Therefore, in a typicalinstallation setup, the consultant will install the software used toimplement the present invention on a consultant computer 17.

Thereafter, the consultant may install the collector software accordingto the invention on the appropriate collector 15′ (or server 16′, if theserver performs the collection function). This software is designed towork with the operating system (or systems) used by the computer network10′, such as Windows NT or other suitable operating systems. Thecollector software, once installed, in turn configures and installs theprinter control data tracker application software on the server 16′and/or user computers 11 a′, 11 b′.

If both the server 16′ and user computers 11 a′, 11 b′ have the trackingsoftware installed thereon, there exists the possibility of doublecounting print jobs as the printer control data propagates through thecomputer network 10′. The present invention may advantageously avoidthis problem by tagging each printer. spool file when it is copied bythe printer control data tracker application. Therefore, before thecopying occurs, a search may be performed for such a tag. If a tagexists, then analysis of the data is not performed, since this hasalready been done “upstream.”

Installation of the counter and/or tracking software of the presentinvention may be performed in several ways. For example, a push installmay be used in which the server 16′ can “silently” push the printercontrol data tracker application software onto any user computers 11 a′,11 b′ on the computer network 10′. This option may be implemented onWindows NT-based networks as well as others, for example. Additionally,an installation program may be emailed to users, along with a messagetelling the user to run that program. The program can either be the fullinstallation program for the printer control data tracker applicationor, alternatively, a smaller executable program which, when run,downloads and runs the larger installation program from the server 16′.

Moreover, on networks where logon scripts are used, the printer controldata tracker application can be installed by adding a command to executethe installer in the logon script. In addition, a manual install from afloppy disk, CD-ROM, etc., or alternatively a network share, may also beused. Other suitable methods may also be used.

It should also be noted that a relatively small local printer portmonitoring program may also be similarly installed on a user computer 11a′, 11 b′ to detect whether the user computer is printing to a localprinter. If so, the local printer port monitoring program can prompt theserver 16′ or collection computer 15′ to cause the printer control datatracker application to be installed on the particular user computer 11a′, 11 b′. This may advantageously reduce the need to install theprinter usage tracker application on every user computer 11 a′, 11 b′,as will be appreciated by those of skill in the art.

As noted above, printer resource usage according to the presentinvention can occur in both online and offline situations. For the caseof a laptop computer 11 b′, if the user is on a business trip andprinting from the laptop, printer usage information may be storedlocally as a file on the laptop. Then, once communication with thecollection computer 15′ is established or re-established via thecomputer network 10′, this printer usage information will be sent to thecollector and purged from the user computer 11 b′.

The same may also be the case for a PC 11 a′ if it is temporarilydisconnected from the computer network 10′ due to network outage, etc.If required, the printer usage files can also be manually copied to thecollection computer 15′ and added to the appropriate database. Ofcourse, the copied printer control data may also advantageously bedeleted from the memory of the server 16′ and/or user computers 11 a′,11 b′ after the printer usage information has been generated to furtherconserve memory consumption.

Once the print job information is sent to the collection computer 15′,it may be stored in a central location in an encrypted format. Thisprevents unauthorized users from analyzing the data and limits suchanalysis to the appropriate consultant or administrator. Such encryptioncan also save space and prevent the collected printer usage informationfrom being corrupted should a user of the computer network 10 attempt tomanipulate the data.

Details of the collection process may advantageously be viewed on-siteby an authenticated user or administrator, for example. Alternately,and/or in addition, summaries of the collection process may beperiodically generated and emailed by the collection software to theconsultant's computer 17′, or else manually collected by the consultant.For example, such data may be transferred as a CSV file, as will beappreciated by those of skill in the art, though any suitable datatransfer method may be used. During the data collection period, otherinformation relevant to the printer resource usage analysis andsubsequent recommendations generated by the collection software may alsobe collected by the consultant. Such information may include, forexample: the identity of all printers 13′ that have print queues to bemonitored and their locations relative to the user computers 11 a′, 11b′; the customer's special needs for secure printing; non-automatedfinishing options; manual finishing options and other options which arenot currently available on-site; and the customer's special stationeryneeds.

Turning now to the analysis of the printer usage information which hasbeen collected, as is illustratively shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, at the endof the collection period the consultant may collect the printer usageinformation from the collection computer 15′ and load this informationinto his computer 17′. The consultant may then normalize the data. It isat this stage that logical printers may be matched to physical devicesfrom the information described above, as will be appreciated by those ofskill in the art.

The consultant may then inspect the printer usage information and selectan appropriate time period to be used for subsequent reports. This timeperiod may be a subset of the collection period, such as a calendarmonth, for example. In some circumstances it may be desirable to selecta time period of more than a few days since it may take several daysbefore the printer control data tracker application is installed on allof the requisite user computers 11 a, 11 b, for example. This may be theresult of users being out of the office and not logging onto theirmachines for an extended period, for example.

The consultant preferably generates reports which include informationregarding print sources and their associated volumes or workloads. Theprint usage information may advantageously be analyzed using existinganalysis software (such as Microsoft Access or Seagate Crystal Reports,for example) to show the printing resources required at various timeperiods and the overall cost of these resources. Feedback may then beprovided by the consultant to the customer on printer usage andconfigurations recommended for maximizing efficiency and minimizingcosts. The recommendations may involve recommending more appropriateprinters 13, or setup thereof, on the computer network 10. Of course,the printer usage information may also be analyzed on-site as well byeither a consultant or an appropriate administrator.

A method aspect of the invention for generating printer usageinformation for a computer network 10 will now be described withreference to the flow diagram of FIG. 3. The method begins (Block 20)with the generation of printer control data from the plurality ofcomputers 11 a, 11 b, as described above, at Block 21. The printercontrol data tracking application running on the at least one designatedcomputer may then intercept the printer control data (Block 22) anddetect whether it has already been tagged, at Block 23. If so, theprinter control data tracking application can pass the printer controldata along for printing (Block 27) without performing an analysis togenerate printer usage information (since this has previously beendone), as described above.

If the printer control data has not previously been tagged, the trackingapplication may optionally copy the printer control data (Block 24) andgenerate the printer usage information therefrom (Block 25), i.e., byrendering or executing the file as described above. The printer usageinformation may also be tagged, at Block 26, and passed along forprinting, at Block 27. Of course, while the step of generating theprinter usage information (Block 25) is illustratively shown asproceding the step of tagging the printer control data (Block 26), thesesteps may be performed in any order. The tagged printer control data maythen be printed, at Block 28, thus concluding the print process (Block30).

The tracking application may then format the printer usage informationas a particular file type (Block 31) and attempt to send the same to thecollection computer 15, at Block 32. If the at least one designatedcomputer cannot send the printer usage information file to thecollection computer 15 (e.g., because either computer is logged off ofthe network 10), at Block 33, it may then store the printer usageinformation file locally (Block 34), as noted above, to be sent to thecollection computer at a later time. By way of example, the printerusage information file may be stored locally until a next time printercontrol data is intercepted, and the steps illustrated at Blocks 32-33repeated, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. On theother hand, if the at least one designated computer can send the printerusage information to the collection computer 15, then this is done(Block 36) and the data collection process is completed, at Block 37.

Turning now to FIG. 4, installation of the tracking application of thepresent invention is illustratively shown. The installation may begin(Block 40) by optionally installing the local printer port monitoringprogram (Block 41) to determine whether a user computer 11 a, 11 b isprinting locally or just to the network printer(s) 13. If local printingis detected, at Block 42, then the collection software may cause thetracking application to be installed on the appropriate user computer(s)11 a, 11 b. This may be done by the methods discussed above, forexample, as well as manually. Further, if the tracking application isonly to be installed on the server 16′, for example, this could also bedone remotely by a consultant (Block 43) or as otherwise noted above,thus ending the installation process (Block 44).

“Turning now to FIG. 5, beginning at Block 50, as the user computers 11′generate and send the print jobs to the printer 13′ (Block 51), theserver 16′ copies the print jobs and executes the copied print jobs todetermine printer usage information therefrom, at Block 52, as discussedfurther above. The collection computer 15′ collects the printer usageinformation from the server 16′, at Block 53, and also illustrativelyperiodically generates a summary of the printer usage information, atBlock 54, thus concluding the method illustrated in FIG. 5 (Block 55).As noted above, the copied printer control data may be deleted from thememory of the server 16′ after the printer usage information has beengenerated, at Block 60 (FIG. 6).”

Many modifications and other embodiments of the invention will come tothe mind of one skilled in the art having the benefit of the teachingspresented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings.Therefore, it is understood that the invention is not to be limited tothe specific embodiments disclosed, and that modifications andembodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appendedclaims.

1. A computer network comprising: at least one printer connected to thenetwork for printing print jobs; a plurality of computers connectedtogether in the network for generating and sending the print jobs to theat least one printer; at least one designated computer from among theplurality of computers generating printer usage information from theprint jobs; and at least one of said plurality of computers comprisingat least one server, and said at least one server causing a monitoringapplication to be installed on said at least one designated computer todetect local printing; said at least one server also causing a trackingapplication to be installed on said at least one designated computer forcausing said at least one designated computer to generate the printerusage information based upon the monitoring application detecting thelocal printing.
 2. The computer network of claim 1 wherein said at leastone designated computer copies the print jobs and generates the printerusage information based upon the copied print jobs.
 3. The computernetwork of claim 1 wherein said at least one designated computercomprises at least one designated server.
 4. The computer network ofclaim 1 wherein said at least one server collects the printer usageinformation.
 5. The computer network of claim 1 wherein said at leastone designated computer comprises at least one of a personal computer(PC), a laptop, and a personal data assistant (PDA).
 6. The computernetwork of claim 1 wherein said at least one designated computer istemporarily connected to the network.
 7. The computer network of claim 1wherein said at least one designated computer also generates the printjobs.
 8. The computer network of claim 1 wherein at least one collectioncomputer from among the plurality of computers collects the printerusage information from said at least one designated computer.
 9. Thecomputer network of claim 8 wherein said at least one collectioncomputer causes a tracking application to be installed on said at leastone designated computer for causing said at least one designatedcomputer to generate the printer usage from the print jobs.
 10. Thecomputer network of claim 8 wherein said at least one collectioncomputer periodically generates a summary of the printer usageinformation.
 11. The computer network of claim 1 wherein said at leastone designated computer also collects the printer usage information. 12.The computer network of claim 1 wherein the printer usage informationcomprises at least one of a date when each print job was sent, a timewhen each print job was sent, an identifier of a computer generatingeach print job, a user name of a user originating each print job, anidentifier for said at least one printer, a number of pages to beprinted, and a size of each print job.
 13. The computer network of claim1 wherein the printer usage information comprises job attributescomprising at least one of paper size, simplex printing, duplexprinting, sorting, stapling, binding, color printing, documentcollation, tumble feeding, manual feeding, automatic feeding, and trim.14. A computer network comprising: at least one printer connected to thenetwork for printing print jobs; a plurality of user computers connectedtogether in the network and generating and sending the print jobs to theat least one printer; and at least one server connected to said networkfor copying the print jobs sent to said at least one printer andexecuting the copied print jobs to determine printer usage informationtherefrom; said at least one server causing a monitoring application tobe installed on at least one of said user computers to detect localprinting, and causing a tracking application to be installed on said atleast one user computer based upon the monitoring application detectingthe local printing, the tracking application for causing said at leastone user computer to copy print jobs originating therefrom and generateprinter usage information for its respective print jobs; said at leastone user computer tagging the print jobs originating therefrom, andwherein said at least one server does not determine printer usa einformation for the tagged print jobs.
 15. The computer network of claim14 wherein said at least one user computer is temporarily connected tothe network.
 16. The computer network of claim 14 wherein said at leastone server also collects the printer usage information.
 17. The computernetwork of claim 14 wherein each user computer comprises at least one ofa personal computer (PC), a laptop, and a personal data assistant (PDA).18. The computer network of claim 14 wherein at least one of said usercomputers collects the printer usage information from said at least oneserver.
 19. The computer network of claim 18 wherein said at least oneuser computer periodically, generates a summary of the printer usageinformation.
 20. The computer network of claim 14 wherein said at leastone server deletes the copied print jobs stored thereon afterdetermining the printer usage information.
 21. The computer network ofclaim 14 wherein the printer usage information comprises at least one ofa date when each print job was sent, a time when each print job wassent, an identifier of a computer generating each print job, a user nameof a user originating each print job, an identifier for said at leastone printer, a number of pages to be printed, and a size of each printjob.
 22. The computer network of claim 14 wherein the printer usageinformation comprises job attributes comprising at least one of papersize, simplex printing, duplex printing, sorting, stapling, binding,color printing, document collation, tumble feeding, manual feeding,automatic feeding, and trim.
 23. A method for generating printer usageinformation for a plurality of computers connected together in acomputer network with at least one server, the method comprising:generating and sending print jobs from the plurality of computers to atleast one printer connected to the computer network; copying the printjobs sent to the at least one printer to the at least one server fromamong the plurality of computers; executing the copied print jobs todetermine printer usage information therefrom using the at least oneserver; using the at least one server to cause a monitoring applicationto be installed on at least one designated computer to detect localprinting; and using the at least one server to cause a trackingapplication to be installed on the at least one designated computerbased upon the monitoring application detecting the local printing, thetracking application for causing the at least one designated computer tocopy print jobs originating therefrom and generate printer usageinformation for its respective print jobs.
 24. The method of claim 23further comprising using the at least one server to collect the printerusage information.
 25. The method of claim 23 wherein the at least onedesignated computer is temporarily connected to the network.
 26. Themethod of claim 23 wherein generating the print jobs comprisesgenerating at least some of the print jobs using the at least onedesignated computer.
 27. The method of claim 23 further comprisingperiodically generating a summary of the printer usage information. 28.The method of claim 23 wherein the printer usage information comprisesat least one of a date when each print job was sent, a time when eachprint job was sent, an identifier of a computer generating each printjob, a user name of a user originating each print job, an identifier forthe at least one printer, a number of pages to be printed, and a size ofeach print job.
 29. The method of claim 23 wherein the printer usageinformation comprises job attributes comprising at least one of papersize, simplex printing, duplex printing, sorting, stapling, binding,color printing, document collation, tumble feeding, manual feeding,automatic feeding, and trim.
 30. A computer-readable medium havingstored computer-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:generating and sending print jobs from a plurality of computersconnected together in a computer network to at least one printerconnected to the computer network; copying the print jobs sent to the atleast one printer to at least one server connected to the computernetwork; executing the copied print jobs to determine printer usageinformation therefrom using the at least one server; using the at leastone server to cause a monitoring application to be installed on at leastone designated computer to detect local printing; and using the at leastone server to cause a tracking application to be installed on the atleast one designated computer based upon the monitoring applicationdetecting the local printing, the tracking application for causing theat least one designated computer to copy print jobs originatingtherefrom and generate printer usage information for its respectiveprint jobs.
 31. The computer-readable medium of claim 30 further havingcomputer-executable instructions for performing a step of collecting theprinter usage information from the at least one designated computer. 32.The computer-readable medium of claim 30 wherein the at least onedesignated computer is temporarily connected to the network.
 33. Thecomputer-readable medium of claim 30 further having computer-executableinstructions for performing a step of periodically generating a summaryof the printer usage information.
 34. The computer-readable medium ofclaim 30 wherein the printer usage information comprises at least one ofa date when each print job was sent, a time when each print job wassent, an identifier of a computer generating each print job, a user nameof a user originating each print job, an identifier for the at least oneprinter, a number of pages to be printed, and a size of each print job.35. The computer-readable medium of claim 30 wherein the printer usageinformation comprises job attributes comprising at least one of papersize, simplex printing, duplex printing, sorting, stapling, binding,color printing, document collation, tumble feeding, manual feeding,automatic feeding, and trim.